The present invention relates generally to dental hygiene systems intended for manual operation and more particularly to improved dental hygiene handles designed for conveniently manipulating a variety of different dental cleaning or stimulating elements. The present invention includes a particularly important improvement to conventional unitary toothbrushes.
Various devices are known in the art for cleaning and stimulating the teeth and gums to maintain good dental hygiene. The most ubiquitous such device is the conventional toothbrush. Another popular cleaning and stimulating device is an interproximal toothbrush such as one of the many different interproximal toothbrushes which are available from John O. Butler Company of Chicago, Ill. Still other types of commonly used cleaning and stimulating devices are rubber stimulators, picks, flossers and even small dental mirrors which aid in monitoring inaccessible areas in the mouth.
These cleaning and stimulating devices may be unitary, comprising a handle and a brush or other cleaning or stimulating element mounted directly in the distal end of the handle. Alternatively, these cleaning and stimulating devices may be removably mounted to the handle. Examples of known approaches to removable mountings of interproximal brushes, rubber stimulators, picks, flossers, and small dental mirrors may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,934,295, 5,758,382, and 5,027,467, which are incorporated by reference.
In using all such dental cleaning and stimulating devices, it is important that the handle in which the devices are held or mounted be easy and comfortable to grip. It is also important that the handle be easy to manipulate. As explained below, in the case of conventional toothbrushes, it is particularly important that the handle be easy to rotate back and forth about its longitudinal axis.
The significance of the handle design is particularly apparent when the Bass method of tooth brushing with a conventional toothbrush is considered. This technique is the most widely recommended method for using a toothbrush to remove plaque from the gingival sulcus and from the exposed surfaces of the teeth. The Bass method requires that the bristles of the toothbrush head be positioned along the gum line at approximately a 45xc2x0 angle, with at least one row of bristles nestled below the gum line. With the brush head oriented in this way, it is gently moved back and forth in short strokes so that bristles in the gingival sulcus loosen and remove plaque which is present there while the rest of the bristles brush and massage the exposed surface of the gum and clean the exposed tooth surfaces. The bristles are then swept away from the gumline and the brush head lifted away and repositioned to perform the same process with adjacent teeth and gums. An important objective of this technique is to reduce targeted pathogenic organisms found in the gingival sulcus in order to, inter alia, minimize or eliminate gingival inflammation and bleeding.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a toothbrush handle that is easy to manipulate generally, and that is easy to rotate about its longitudinal axis.
It is another object of this invention to provide a toothbrush handle that is well adapted for use in the Bass method of toothbrushing.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a dental hygiene handle which can be easily and conveniently shifted to a variety of different positions to enable the user to conveniently manipulate a variety of different dental cleaning and stimulating devices.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a handle for use in dental hygiene systems which is particularly comfortable to use in a variety of different positions.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear hereinafter.
The present invention, in a preferred embodiment, accomplishes the foregoing objects by providing a dental hygiene system handle well adapted for comfortably gripping and manipulating and rotating about its longitudinal axis, including a proximal grip section, a distal brush section and, therebetween, a central control section. The central control section has four elastomeric lands for receiving the thumb and forefinger of a user on opposite sides of the central control section. The lands meet each other at the outer surface of the central control section at angles from about 25xc2x0 to 65xc2x0, and preferably at an angle of about 45xc2x0.
The dental hygiene system handle typically will have a toothbrush head with bristles at its distal end. The handle may be unitary, with the toothbrush head being integral with the rest of the handle and the bristles being mounted in the head. Alternatively, the toothbrush head is removably mounted to the handle.
The grip of the proximal grip section is generally ellipsoidal in shape, rounded at its proximal tip and bulging outwardly as the contour of the grip moves distally to its maximum radial divergence. The central control section necks down and then diverges outwardly in a smooth curved contour to a pair of peaks near the distal end of the control section. Within the area of the peaks are lands for the placement of a user""s thumb meeting at the outer surface of the central control section at an angle of about 45xc2x0.
The lands may be of a generally inverted teardrop shape, with a larger rounded end of the teardrop oriented generally toward the distal end of the central control section and a smaller, narrower rounded end of the teardrop oriented generally toward the proximal end of the central control section. Also, the lands may include a raised design.
In one particularly preferred embodiment, the handle comprises a rigid base member that is selectively overmolded with elastomer. In this embodiment, the rigid base member includes an overmolding area extending from just distal to the end of the handle comprising a slot in the top of the base member that extends below the handle along its proximal and central control sections to form a half-moon cut-away profile on the bottom of the rigid base member. The half-moon cut-away profile is flanked by a pair of ledges and the cut-away profile runs from the bottom of the handle into another slot that encircles the neck of the distal brush section of the rigid base member.
Finally, a through-slot is formed in the control section and a blind slot is formed in the proximal section of the handle to help anchor the elastomer to the rigid base member. Elastomer is provided at the top of the handle in the proximal grip section extending to and running along the bottom of the handle in the central control section. The remaining sections of the handle comprise exposed portions of the rigid base member.
The invention also comprises a method of brushing the teeth by a user by providing a dental hygiene system handle as described above, gripping with the three lower fingers curled around and holding the ellipsoidal proximal grip section while the central control section is held between the forefinger and the thumb. The user then moves the handle to position the brush bristles along the gum line in one quadrant of the mouth, at approximately a 45xc2x0 angle, with at least one row of bristles nestled below the gum line, gently moving the handle back and forth so that bristles in the user""s gingival sulcus loosen and remove plaque present there while the rest of the bristles brush and massage the exposed surface of the gum and clean the exposed tooth surfaces.
When it is desired to move to another quadrant, the user lifts the brush bristles away and rotates the brush handle 90xc2x0 or 180xc2x0 along its longitudinal axis to properly position the bristles at a new location at approximately a 45xc2x0 angle, with at least one row of bristles nestled below the gum line.
The above as well as other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments in which reference is made to the accompanying drawings.